ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

From The Metal Mag (France) "Dogbane :" Residual Alcatraz" CD 2011 USA Heavy Metal Heaven 'n hell records. Brilliant tunes in the vein of Agent Steel, Virtual Remains, Militia, Hellstar, early Judas Priest!!! what else to say?! just ... Heavy and great for the Metallers . This is good value so get that masterpiece now!" From Scumfeast metal 666...reveiw ..... North Carolina has a wide variety of bands who play just about every type of metal genre you can name. But one thing I've learned is that classic sounding metal, whether it's the heavy 70's era (PRIEST, SABBATH,etc) or 80's NWOBHM, will always reign supreme.

DOGBANE is one of those types of bands and they're good. They even have a classic metal five piece lineup of twin guitarists, bass player, drummer and a vocalist who sings clean and has a good range. When this release starts out with the song "Ride the Serpent" and you hear that riff. Your arm will just rise up flying the horned fist out of habit and start screaming "yeahhhhh"! "Born to Die" picks up the pace with chunky riffs, MAIDEN-esque soloing and artillery sounding drumming. From that point on it's that same formula of explosive classic metal which hearkens back to my teenage years. Listening to this is akin to when I first saw PRIEST in the 70s, it's that exciting. As I said before their vocalist, Jeff Neal, has a good range and on "Banished" he lets loose with a Halford-esque scream. "Annihilator" shows off some heavy SABBATH influenced riffage along with more of that Halford style singing with even some PRIEST like song structure ala twin guitar soloing. "Devil in the Dark" pushes the dual guitar theatrics and the classic metal elements to their fullest. I'd say it's between that one and the opener as favorites but in all honesty every song on here is a favorite. "Burning the Light" is classic Doom, no not sludge not stoner rock, this is DOOM! I'm talking about a mega riff forged by the gods of metal and handed down to DOGBANE, after CANDLEMASS used it of course but still great. "Fire and Brimstone" borrows from LINK WRAY by starting and ending it with his signature song "Rumble". Final cut "How the Mighty have Fallen" has another killer, KILLER! savage sounding riff plus a rhythm that sounds so familiar (early 80's?). I've said enough this release rules!